LeVine cringed, his muscles involuntarily contracted as Mendy, the cloying pimpled rabbi on the make for his own congregation, sat next to him in the back of the synagogue. He forced a welcoming smile at the while his stomach turned. The young zealot did not get the message, he would not leave LeVine alone. Reel the moneyman in and get the new congregation started, although LeVine wanted no part of it.
Mendy just did not get it. LeVine went to synagogue to lose himself among the minions of leftovers. It was the only time where LeVine could be off, where he didn't want to work a crowd for new investors or to pump up his public profile. Sitting there among the sea of disaffected, LeVine could let himself drift among the the chanting, the prayers, the sermons, the din of old farts complaining. No one to impress, no one to court, no elaborate stories to fabricate.
"Good shabbos, Shlumi," which meant that LeVine now had to shake Mendy's pimple-popping hand while trying not to gag. Shlumi, he says, crossing the border of familiarity, yiddishicizing his name as if they were back in the shtetl.
"Good shabbos, Rabbi Mendy," LeVine mutters while wiping his hand against his pants. "Lots of snow today," he says deliberately limited any conversation to the broadest terms.
"Should make for some fantastic skiing tomorrow."
Strange thing for a rabbi to say, LeVine thought.
"You mean you ski?" LeVine tried to imagine the black hatter on skis, but drew a blank.
Mendy rubbed his chin of scraggy hairs that looked more like a patch of armpit hair than a beard. He contemplated his response.
"Hmmm, I don't think so, not that I recall?"
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